The Healing Bouquet

Vinton McCabe

Description

Vinton McCabe seeks to place the Bach Flower Remedies within their natural context - that of homeopathic medicine. The history of the Bach remedies is explored as well as the philosophy behind their appropriate use.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Santé du quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Fitness
• Health
• Alternative Therapies

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781591206446
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE HEALING
BOUQUET
EXPLORING BACH FLOWER REMEDIES
V INTON M C C ABE
The information contained in this book is based upon the research and personal and professional experiences of the author. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other healthcare provider. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should be done under the direction of a healthcare professional.
The publisher does not advocate the use of any particular healthcare protocol but believes the information in this book should be available to the public. The publisher and author are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of the suggestions, preparations, or procedures discussed in this book. Should the reader have any questions concerning the appropriateness of any procedures or preparation mentioned, the author and the publisher strongly suggest consulting a professional healthcare advisor.
Basic Health Publications, Inc.
28812 Top of the World Drive
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
1-800-575-8890 • www.basichealthpub.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCabe, Vinton.
The healing bouquet : exploring Bach flower remedies / by Vinton McCabe.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59120-644-6
1. Bach, Edward, 1886–1936. 2. Flowers—Therapeutic use. 3. Homeopathy—Materia medica and therapeutics. I. Title.
RX615.F55M3715         2007
615’.321-dc22
2007009682
Copyright © 2007 by Vinton McCabe
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the copyright owner.
Editor: Karen Anspach
Typesetting/Book design: Gary A. Rosenberg
Cover design: Mike Stromberg
Printed in the United States of America
10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1
Contents
Author’s Note
Introduction: Emotional Healing

PART ONE
Bach’s Flower Remedies
1. The History of the Flower Remedies: Healing, Hahnemann, and Bach
2. The Riddle of the Flower Remedies: Homeopathy, Allopathy, and Flower Essences

PART TWO
A Reference Guide to the Bach Flower Remedies
3. The Bach Flower Remedies: An Introduction
4. Considering the First Mood: The Aspects of Fear
R EMEDIES FOR T HOSE W HO F EAR
Mimulus • Aspen • Red Chestnut Rock Rose • Cherry Plum
5. Considering the Second Mood: The Degrees of Despair
R EMEDIES FOR T HOSE W HO D ESPAIR
Larch • Elm • Oak • Crab Apple • Willow Pine • Sweet Chestnut • Star of Bethlehem
6. Considering the Third Mood: The Constraint of Doubt
R EMEDIES F OR T HOSE W HO D OUBT
Gentian • Hornbeam • Gorse Scleranthus • Cerato • Wild Oat
7. Considering the Fourth Mood: Self Versus Others: Oversensitivity to the World
R EMEDIES F OR T HOSE W HO A RE O VERLY S ENSITIVE
Agrimony • Centaury • Walnut • Holly
8. Considering the Fifth Mood: The Need to Control
R EMEDIES F OR T HOSE W HO A RE C ONTROLLING
Chicory • Beech • Rock Water • Vervain • Vine
9. Considering the Sixth Mood: The Curse of Indifference
R EMEDIES F OR T HOSE W HO A RE I NDIFFERENT
Clematis • Honeysuckle • Mustard • Olive • Wild Rose • White Chestnut • Chestnut Bud
10. Considering the Seventh Mood: The Faces of Loneliness
R EMEDIES F OR T HOSE W HO A RE L ONELY
Water Violet • Heather • Impatiens

PART THREE
Using the Bach Flower Remedies
11. Taking Cases
12. Combining Remedies
13. Rescue Remedies and Other Blends
14. Using Bach Flower Remedies

Appendices
Resources
Twelve Healers, Seven Helpers
The Yin and Yang of Bach Remedies
Remedies with Masks
The Ultimate (Baker’s) Dozen: Healers for Your Home Kit
Bach Treatments for Animals
Other Flower Essences
About the Author
The Bach Flower Remedies Listed Alphabetically
1. Agrimony
2. Aspen
3. Beech
4. Centaury
5. Cerato
6. Cherry Plum
7. Chestnut Bud
8. Chicory
9. Clematis
10. Crab Apple
11. Elm
12. Gentian
13. Gorse
14. Heather
15. Holly
16. Honeysuckle
17. Hornbeam
18. Impatiens
19. Larch
20. Mimulus
21. Mustard
22. Oak
23. Olive
24. Pine
25. Red Chestnut
26. Rock Rose
27. Rock Water
28. Scleranthus
29. Star of Bethlehem
30. Sweet Chestnut
31. Vervain
32. Vine
33. Walnut
34. Water Violet
35. White Chestnut
36. Wild Oat
37. Wild Rose
38. Willow
“Health is our heritage, our right. It is the complete and full union between soul, mind and body; and this is no difficult far-away ideal to attain, but one so easy and natural that many of us have overlooked it.”
—E DWARD B ACH IN F REE T HYSELF
Author’s Note
I wish to thank Julian Barnard of Healing Herbs, Ltd., for his kind permission to use the quotes taken from Dr. Bach’s own writings that have been included throughout this book. Without Mr. Barnard’s kind permission to present Edward Bach’s core principles in his own words, this book would be a lesser thing. I am deeply indebted to Mr. Barnard, who acted as editor to Dr. Bach in the publication of his collected writings, and to all those who work with him at Healing Herbs, for their guidance and generosity.
All quotations used have been taken from The Collected Writings of Edward Bach . For more information on the collected works, and on Healing Herbs, which continues Dr. Bach’s works for a new century of practitioners and patients worldwide, please turn to the Resource Guide at the back of this volume.
I N TRODUCTI ON
Emotional Healing
L ike most people, the first time I heard about the Bach Flower Remedies, I heard about Rescue Remedy.
It was about twenty-five years ago, and I had just started to seriously study homeopathy, something about which I was almost equally ignorant.
I was standing backstage at a theatrical rehearsal, rather pompously telling a friend and fellow actor that she should go to see the wonderful new homeopathic practitioner I had just found. Another member of the company happened to overhear me and came over to say that she had been using homeopathy for years. She opened her purse and pulled out a bottle of Rescue Remedy. I had never seen this little bottle before and was unfamiliar with this odd form of medicine that came in liquid form and with the yellow label that has become so familiar to me over the years.
She told me that she always took it if she felt that she had a cold or other form of illness coming on or, as was presently the case, if she was nervous before a performance.
I looked at the bottle, shook it and said, “I don’t know what this is, but it isn’t homeopathy.”
In saying this, I not only let her know (not for the first time, I am sure) how pompous I can be, but I also let her know how little I knew about homeopathy.
And yet there was some truth in my judgmental statement. When you hold Rescue Remedy in your hand, or any other flower essence, for that matter, you are holding a homeopathic medicine. And, at the same time, you are not. You are holding an herbal medicine, which means that you are holding something that must be considered allopathic. 1
In other words, the Bach Flower Remedies can be tricky things, both for those who espouse homeopathy and for those who are dedicated to the practice of allopathic medicine, who tend to try and ignore flower remedies or lump them, with open distain, among those things they rather maddeningly call “alternative medicine.” (Alternative to what? To the poisons they are giving? By allowing the use of that word “alternative,” those who adhere to more natural forms of medical treatment allow the allopaths to standardize their own treatments—poor though they might be—and marginalize everything else. Don’t ever say that word “alternative” to me.). This is especially true of those who, like me, were trained in classical homeopathy. Don’t even get me started here—I really hate that word “classical,” because it presupposes that treatments that use homeopathic remedies incorrectly, that do not adhere to the principles of homeopathic practice are, in reality, homeopathy, which they are not and will never be. A treatment is either homeopathic or it is not—except for the flower remedies, of course. In the appropriate practice of homeopathic medicine, you can’t give remedies incorrectly and then pretend you have “discovered” some new form of homeopathy.
Hard liners, what we call “Hahnemannian” homeopaths, are likely to be very suspicious of the Bach remedies, as I myself was many years ago when I spoke against them with my chest puffed out. They will insist that because the Bach remedies are only slightly diluted and are basically in the same material form they are in when plucked from the soil, they must be considered herbal medicines and not homeopathic. And worse, homeopaths can become alarmed by Bach’s theories of treatment, which all but ignore the physical symptoms of the patient and zero in on his or her emotional and spiritual distress.
Again, more on this later, but it is important to note that, from the moment of their creation, Edward Bach’s remedies and the thinking process that brought them about were controversial from the very beginning. In his own evolution as a doctor and as a healer, Bach more or less cut his ties from both groups of practitioners as he set forth on his mission to bring healing into the life of every man, woman, and child. Even more controversial, Bach placed the responsibility for the healing process and the control of that process in the hands of the patient and not the practitioner, which is something that no doctor of any stripe could ever accept.
Bach was and remains, as we shall see, a truly revolutionary figure in the field of health and healing. His research, his results, and his eloquent writings set him apart from and ahead of nearly every other practitioner of medicine in the Western tradition.
Therefore, I do not think that there can be too